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This audiobook uses AI narration.
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Learn moreThree young women have been brutally assaulted and murdered in the city of Philadelphia. Lieutenant William Fogarty, a time-toughened cop hardened by personal tragedy, is shocked by the brutality of the crimes. His only lead comes from medical examiner Josef Tanaka. Half Japanese and half American, Tanaka, a skilled practitioner of the martial arts, claims to recognize the method used in the attacks: a karate strike known as nukite, or spear hand. Fogarty has nowhere else to turn.
An unlikely combination, Fogarty and Tanaka, forced together by circumstance and neither completely trusting the other, conduct a desperate hunt, trawling the city streets of Philadelphia and into the dangerous underbelly of the killing arts.
Pursuing the Mantis, a creature who uses the flesh of his victims in a sadistic, macabre ritual of self-purification, Fogarty and Tanaka endanger the lives of those closest to them as they inch perilously close to the precipice of their own worst fears and weaknesses.
Richard La Plante has been writing professionally since 1987 and has published eight crime fiction novels and three memoirs. With degrees in psychology and literature, he combines his longtime study of Japanese martial arts with his interest in metaphysics to create spine-tingling thrillers. He also loves Harley-Davidsons and will be reissuing his two motorcycle memoirs. He lives in the mountains of Ojai, California, and has recently founded an independent publishing company, Escargot Books, where he blogs regularly.
Robin Sachs (1951–2013), actor and narrator, was raised in London and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His audiobook narrations earned ten Earphones Awards. His acting credits include Alias, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dynasty, Nowhere Man, Babylon 5, Diagnosis Murder, Galaxy Quest, Northfork, Ocean’s 11, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and Megalodon.